Vita-Mix have featured their 5200 super blender on a number of popular TV programs. They featured on the Martha Stewart show ”The Martha Stewart Show” is an hour long daily series that informs and inspires viewers on subjects from cooking and entertaining to crafting and gardening, hosted by Martha Stewart.

And then, Vita-Mix featured on the Ellen Degeneres show ’12 Days of Giveaways’ and actually gave away over 300 of their 5200 Super Blenders on the show.  This episode will no doubt flight in South Africa, but who knows when so here is a photo clip of the Viamix giveaway.

And then, Vita-Mix Corporation gave Colleen and Michael of Healthmakers one of the new Brushed Stainless Model 5200.

Now this is a Super Blender that you could REALLY get passionate about. Between looks and performance i’m not sure what the world has to offer that could beat it.

Go and check this beauty out at www.healthmakers.co.za. Just search for brushed stainless.

Another Healthmakers approved product that will be in stock mid August 2011.

Saturday 26 March at 8:30pm is the day and time we all give a little back to Mother Earth. Its Earth Hour 2011 and by switching off the lights for one hour in the evening you will be joining in the worldwide symbolic gesture to pledge your commitment to combating climate change (last year the ‘hour’ became the planet’s largest voluntary action ever witnessed as it reached 1.3 billion people in at least 128 different countries).

Imagine what we can achieve indeed! This year there is a movement to go beyond the hour (60+) with each person making a commitment to a positive action for the planet, a commitment that can be celebrated by turning off your lights on March 26th. The challenge is to find one way you can be an inspiration and make a difference by taking your pledge beyond the hour! Healthmakers would love to help you make this commitment to Earth Hour 60+ by suggesting a number of simple yet effective ways that can help you help the planet.

We believe the Eco-Charger is a break through in Green Energy Technology. It recharges ordinary bog standard AA and AAA Alkaline disposable batteries and also the rechargeable batteries (Ni-MH batteries are cadmium-free and therefore less toxic than the cheaper Ni-Cd alternatives). Becides the financial upside though money saved, by recharging all your batteries you will be helping to alleviate the environmental problems regarding disposing of batteries as the number used can very quickly multiply.

Remember that ordinary batteries should not be thrown away with ordinary household waste as they contain toxic chemicals that can leach into the soil and groundwater. You can safely dispose of all depleted batteries through the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (RBRC) and Uniross, a company which has joined forces with all Pick n Pay stores and selected Makro, Builders Warehouse and Stax stores to put collection boxes for all battery types in the stores. The batteries are collected and the non-recyclable ones are “concretised” and disposed of safely, the recyclable ones are put in a container to be sent to a facility in France where they can be recycled as there are no facilities in South Africa that can recycle batteries. By using the Eco-Charger you are reusing every battery upto 20 times and then by recycling you are not only ensuring the safety of our ground water and food (through healthy soil) but you are also ensuring that the finite source of metals used in making the battery is reused.

A second way to take up the 60+ pledge is to get an ECO Kettle. If you are not using this kind of kettle you are currently on average boiling twice the amount of water needed because measuring the amount of water to be boiled is nearly impossible.  This means twice as much energy used, in fact if you are using a 3kw kettle and it takes 60 seconds to boil you could power a single lightbulb for 50mins using the same amount of energy. The ECO-Kettle with two reservoirs works differently. You have a 7 cup reservoir of water that feeds through to the boiling chamber (when you hold the selection quantity button down, where you can select to boil from a single cup to 5 cups of water at a time). This means that you save energy every time you boil by boiling only the exact amount of water that you need. (The Energy Saving Trust in the UK did a consumer trial on the ECO-Kettle and found that 31% less energy was used than by normal kettles).

There are those that care about the environment and there are those that care about their back pocket. If you are either of these people then this kettle is for you. Often when we make a change to benefit the environment we often have to compromise our own convenience. With the Eco Kettle it is win win all the way. Enjoy the benefits of a fast boiling 2200 watt element, save the cost of electricity by not boiling unnecessary water and honour your pledge to Earth Hour 60+ and our planet by playing a part in taking care of the environment. It will certainly pay for itself time and again.

Did you know that empty plastic water bottles have become a major contributor to worldwide pollution and that for every 2 plastic bottles produced you have added 1kg of carbon dioxide to your personal carbon footprint?  Did you know that 40% of bottled water is actually TAP WATER? With or without added filtration – you’re paying through the nose for it. Worse, an independent test found arsenic, DPBs and 36 other harmful pollutants including industrial chemicals hiding in bottled water which could also contain the potentially hazardous chemical BPA.

Buying your water in a plastic bottle means:

• that in the time it takes you to read just this one short sentence, over 8,000 empty water bottles are being thrown away worldwide.
• means that 5500 rubbish trucks will be filled each day solely with plastic bottles.
• that the U.S. alone used 4110 barrels of oil to produce the 67 million plastic water bottles discarded EVERY day!

The production of plastic bottles doesn’t just deplete the planet of oil reserves but we ask that you please consider the harm that the processing of plastic water bottles does as it releases toxic compounds such as nickel, ethylbenzene, ethylene oxide, and benzene into the environment.

Healthmakers therefore recommends that you give up your plastic water bottle habit and save the planet by offering a wide range of BPA Free water bottles which are reusable and refillable making them extremely Eco-Friendly. They can be filled with water (or other liquids) you can trust to keep you healthy (see our Water Purification range on our website for healthy water options)

BPA Free Water Bottles:

Cheeki Water Bottles are manufactured from Premium 304 Food Grade Stainless Steel and are healthy for you and the environment, and are available in a wide range of stylish and fun designs that keep your water fresh and cold. Cheeki bottles are perfect for kids’ lunchboxes; sports; exercise and everyday use.

The FLOW Water Bottles we offer are made from 100% food-grade Stainless Steel making them toxin and BPA Free, because all these bottles are stainless steel they do not need a liner like an aluminum bottle would, this means that the these bottles will not hold flavors or make the water taste strange. The caps of the FLOW Water Bottles are made from recyclable BPA-free polypropylene.

We believe that by adding your positive actions towards making our world a better place by using even one of these environment ideas, you can become a part of Earth Hours 60+ global symbol of hope and movement for change. “Together our actions add up. So take action, and save the date for this year’s Earth Hour.

St Patrick’s day came and went in my world without much recognition until my daughter Tammy came back to South Africa to join Healthmakers, after a 10 year stint in Ireland. So this year we will see how St Patrick’s day can be celebrated in a small and healthful way on this great big island of Africa.
The original reason for celebrating Paddy’s day is to commemorate the feast day of St Patrick who was a Christian missionary and who was later made the patron saint of Ireland. Today however it has become a colourful and lively joyous celebration marked by musical performers, floats in all the countries where the Irish have made their mark including, the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Argentina, Uruguay, New Zealand, and South Africa.

If you would like  your friends to be Green with envy this St Patricks day then get going on growing some micro-greens.  With the versatile Easygreen you can grow anything from smallest alfalfa sprouts to large sprouts and micro-greens. You won’t need the luck of the Irish when you have an EasyGreen micro-farm. I placed some mung beans and clover seed into the Easygreen sprouter just 18 hours ago and already they are celebrating St Patrick’s day!

The clover is used as the Celtic tradition of honoring “3′s” has been around in Ireland for millennia.

Here are some things in life that come in three’s

3 leaf clovers

faith, hope and charity

past present and future

land sea and sky

the religious trinity and then there are So many things that are represented by 3′s like

3 cheers

3 blind mice

3 is a crowd

3 R’s

3 muskateers

There are just so many of these 3′s  See how many more you can think of.

Getting back to the Easygreen Micro-farm, remember that at the end of the rainbow of your Easygreen mist sprayer you will find your pot of green gold.  Your family will be going through the sprouts and greens so fast that you might think that the tokoloshe are helping you to eat them but today, to be sure to be sure you can blame the leprechaun. On St Patrick’s day, if you are sprouting clover be sure to look fo a four-leafed clover and perhaps this year to celebrate Paddy’s Day swop your Guinness for a Green Smoothie.

Happy St Patricks Day!

Take note of the dangers of BPA

What is BPA?

It is a chemical known as Bisphenol A (BPA)

Because I do not drink carbonated drinks, and I’m not that fond of bottled and canned fruit juices, because they are high in sugar and have been cooked and pasteurised, I always carry water with me. As I am reasonably fussy about the water I drink, preferring not to drink tap water, I carry purified water with me from home.
Some years back we became conscious of the fact that storing water, in any old plastic container, did not appear to be a healthy practice as chemical substances could leach from plastic into the water. We really went out of our way to find ‘safe’  containers which, at that time we were informed should be made of polycarbonate. One only has to look at the collection bottles, and processing jugs that were used by most manufacturing companies, to confirm that this was the right route to take. It came as quite a shock to find out that the polycarbonate bottles that we had been carrying our water around in, all contained Bisphenol A, which, is an endocrine disruptor that can actually mimic the body’s own hormones, interfering with oestrogen and other reproductive hormones.

Listen to what Mike Shelby, PhD. of The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (US Govt) has to say about Bisphenol A

So, not only was the Bisphenyl A leeching from the polycarbonate water bottles that I had chosen to save my water in, but also from carbonated drink tin cans, making the high sugar, caffeine laden, acidic, carbonated drinks much more dangerous to human health than I had imagined.

I proceeded to research Bisphenol further and was surprised to find out that babies bottles and drinking cups were commonly made of this type of plastic.
See http://www.plasteurope.com/news/PLASTICS_AND_HEALTH_t218796

Next, I was lead to how you can identify the type of plastic that a plastic bottle is made from by the number in the Recycle Symbol, that is usually moulded into the bottle.  Initially it appeared quite simple to be able to judge the safety of the plastic bottle by the numbers but I soon realised that the interpretation of these numbers was more complicated.  Polycarbonate that leeches BPA would be marked number seven, and that seemed clear enough, until I found out that the replacement for polycarbonate, that was BPA-free, and known as co-polyester is also labelled with recycle number seven. However, you will find that plastic bottles that do not contain Bisphenyl A are now marked BPA-free.

So, what are the safe options in choosing a drinking water bottle? My research shows that a good quality aluminium bottle that is well lined with a non-leaching substance would be a good choice, as would a stainless steel bottle ,which, would be a bit heavier, and finally a standard old-fashioned choice is a glass bottle but this is not always practical, especially for children as it is subject to being broken if dropped.

The common attitude,  that I’ve been doing this for years and hasn’t killed me, prevails, and I would agree with you, however, it is not the single contaminants that is the problem, but the multiplicity of contaminants that ,when added up, produce life-threatening diseases. When this happens, we find it difficult to pinpoint the straw that broke the camel’s back.

I  invite you to take this seriously, and to try to avoid consuming Bisphenyl A  by drinking out of polycarbonate bottles and containers, tin cans, cold drink tins and checking that babies bottles and cups are BPA-free.

Below is a list of health issues related to the absorption of Bisphenyl A taken from http://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/bpa/bpa_side_effects.php

“More than 200 lab animal tests to date strongly suggest that BPA exposure, even at very low doses, creates risks of dangerous developmental, neural and reproductive health effects in infants and children. Exposure to BPA, even at low and short-term doses, is linked to a staggering number of health problems, including:

Life threatening illnesses are created, often not through the one toxin, but the combination of one and one and one and one.

Suggestion: Eliminate this One from your life and that of your children.

Alternative safe drinking bottles are available at: http://healthmakers.co.za/store/water-bottles/

Gee I never realised that i would miss my green smoothie as much as I did. It went something like this. Before we left for India I had to consider just how I would make a green smoothie without my Hi-Blend or my Vitamix super blender. We were going to be away for the whole month and I knew without any doubt that it would be difficult to survive without my Green Smoothie for all that time. First was how to replace the super blender to produce something that would resemble a Green Smoothie I also knew that I could Never achieve the level of creaminess of my regular smoothie but that was still an acceptable compromise. I did a test drive on various stick and personal blenders and finally settled on taking a powerful 400 watt stick blender and a seed grinder to pre-grind the seeds and nuts.

The smoothie package looked like this:

A pack each of almonds, cashews, macadamia, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds.
Barley green powder, raw cacao powder, hemp seed powder, and maca powder that I decanted into enough single smoothie packs for the anticipatednumber of smoothies that I could make.
A packet of dehydrated kale in case of emergency where I could not get any greens.
A sharp knife (had to remember to put it into the suitcase going into the hold otherwise it would be confiscated, just like another 2 pen knives that I forgot to transfer).

We stayed in Mumbai one night so breakfast was a milky tea and a rubbery parathas. The next breakfast was in Delhi where the selection for breakfast was sweet milky tea, porridge and milk, toast and butter or toast and jam. Mmmm, to eat or not to eat, that was the question. I chose the toast and jam and tea.  I am a firm believer that the benefit or the detrimental effect of what we eat relates to our state of mind and intention, so, being wheat and dairy intolerant, I had the choice of focusing on the problems of the wheat bread and the dairy in the tea or to see it as great food that my body would lovingly accept to nourish me and remove the pangs of hunger. So, before taking the first bite, I waved my hands over the toast and said “Green Smoothie, Green Smoothie”. This was a bit like looking for a miracle similar to Aladdin saying A b r a c a d a b r a!

Our next breakfast offering was a simple Indian breakfast of wheat porridge, buffalo milk, brown sugar, toast, butter and jam. It was now 3 days without a Green Smoothie and I was beginning to have withdrawal symptoms. I had managed to accumulate a bit of fruit so was contented with a fruit , nut and seed smoothie knowing that I would be into my greens Very soon.

DAY 4 A Green Smoothie at last! We found green leaves in abundance and the limited variety of fruit was fresh and of good quality so we made some simple Green Smoothie combinations such as:

Pawpaw, Banana, Naartjie, Apple, Lime, seeds and nuts and one of the additives and a load of spinach leaves. It was pure heaven! For 6 days we delighted in a big jug of Green Smoothie where flavours were altered by increasing and reducing the quantities of fruit and the variety of additives

DAY 10 The train journey to Delhi certainly did not offer Smoothies in the menu and no, please don’t ask me what we had for breakfast.

Day 11 Another bread and jam and milky tea which means another day without a Green Smoothie and more Abracadabra

DAY 12 The first day at the Ayruvedic Centre and guess what? Not even an Ayruvedic Smoothie for breakfast. Well that didn’t last long, I quickly convinced the Doctor that I REALLY needed Green Smoothies

DAY 13 Request for green leaves were met with general confusion about what I was looking for. The kitchen manager agreed to go and bring back green leaves from the market. Based on this, we enjoyed a fruit smoothie, upgraded with some raw cacoa, seeds and nuts.

DAY 14 To my absolute amazement the trip to the market proved unsuccessful. Can you imagine no green leaves! I mean absolutely No Green Leaves!! After some investigation I established that the Indians in the province of Kerela do not eat green leaves. So, what now? How do you make a Green Smoothie without green leaves? Oh yes! I remembered that in my bag of tricks was a bag of dehydrated kale – not truly a green smoothie because quantities were limited and these had to serve my salad upgrades too.

DAY 15 Today I added some Barley Life to the smoothie which gave it a definite green tinge. It wasn’t really a Green Smoothie, but that green tinge just made me feel better.

DAY 16 Great excitement today! I established that the leaves from the ‘drumstick’ tree are edible so guess what? Today I was in celebration, the first Green Smoothie in 5 days. Mmmm, it looked like a green smoothie and tasted like one – Just So Delicious. How can I explain the passion.

DAY 17 Another delicious drumstick smoothie. And I am told that drumstick leaves are very nutritious.

DAY 18 What a shock! Today my Ayruvedic detox started in ernest and Green Smoothies were no longer on the menu.

DAY 19-26 NO GREEN SMOOTHIES – Say no more!

DAY 27 Intense persuasion convinced the Doctor that I Really needed to get back to Green Smoothies so this morning I found some more drumstick leaves and savoured my first Green Smoothie in 9 days AND today we took an auto-rickshaw to the nearest town of Kottayam and low and behold, in a little vegetable shop I found and bought a bunch of one of two bunches of green leaves.

DAYS 28-32 We enjoyed not only Green Smoothies with green leaves
and our usual additives but now we had a Kerela
touch to things with the addition of what is known as tender coconut.
Oh, it’s great to be back home with my Vitamix Super Blender and enough home grown greens to make all the smoothies I like.

If you have any stories of passion about your green smoothies please share them, we would love to hear them.

It’s here! The Angel-hair Spyra-Gyra. The finest Spiral Slicer available. It’s Childs Play. 3 Stunning spaghetti sizes and a flute blade.

The most versatile piece of hand operated equipment around. Makes SpaghettiSalads, Stir Fry veggies, Coleslaw, Decorations, Raw Zucchini Spaghetti,  Potato Nest, and more, in seconds. Watch kids eat their veggies the fun healthy way – Turn veggies into spaghetti.

Go to the Gallery for entertaining images of children enjoying the Spyra-gyra.

This Raw Baklava Recipe is from Juliano’s Book Raw -Uncook Book

Ingredients have been converted from US to Metric

3 cups OATS

2 cups PITTED DATES

FILTERED WATER for soaking dates and oats

1/4 cup maple syrup or honey

1 cup RAW PECANS

1 tsp MACE

2 cups raw WALNUTS AND ALMONDS coarsely chopped

Soak the oats and dates in separate containers with enough water to cover for 2 hours. Drain.

In a Super Blender combine oats and maple syrup or honey and blend until creamy.

Spoon blender contents, about 3mm thick onto a solid Dehydrator sheet and dehydrate until crispy, about 6 hours.

Transfer oat crust onto a pie plate.

Set aside.

In a Food Processor (or Oscar Juicer), homogenize dates and pecans and spread a 2.5cm  layer of the mixture over the oat crust.

Evenly sprinkle one third of the walnuts, almonds and a pinch of mace of date-nut paste. Repeat the layering process until you’ve used all the date-nut paste, nuts and mace;

• it makes up to three layers

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It all started at the beginning of 1995.  We were keen organic vegetables growers, ran courses in growing vegetables organically and manufactured and supplied a start to finish organic vegetable growing system for the home gardener. To beef up my knowledge I subscribed to the American organic gardening magazine and became more and more intrigued with the advert about making tomato ice cream with a Vitamix blender. Following their offers in the advert I requested a 20 Page brochure! Who offered such huge brochures – Vita-Mix!

Not long after we had received our Vitamix I concluded that this would be a superb product to import. Importing was a lifelong dream of mine and so in October 1995 the first shipment of Vitamix Super Blenders arrived.

Now Vita-Mix Corp are a real conservative family-run organisation and so change does not come easy. It was about the time that Healthmakers became one of Vita-Mix’s first international dealers – I think Australia and Healthmakers started in the same year – open to correction – that Vita-Mix had just launched their Total Nutrition Center. This was a HUGE move from the Vita-Mix 4000. It had a stainless steel jug with a tap, so a move to a clear polycarbonate container  and a light white base was quite something.

So, it is now 15 years later and Vita-Mix have taken the plunge and upgraded the existing machine. The ‘New’ model 5200 is not characterised by a touch pad and anything digital. It remains the same basic machine with two switches and a dial – On and Off, High and Variable, and the Variable dial. It seems that at the end of the day the product is well proven and highly dependable. Vita-Mix Corp. obviously looked at where improvements could be made and ended up by launching the 5200 model with a quieter Swedish designed motor, an Eastman Tritan™ copolyester jug that is BpA free to replace the now less popular polycarbonate, a soft-grip handle to improve operation comfort, an easy-off lid to replace the more difficult to remove rubber lid and finally a slight design change to the jug itself to avoid that inevitable drip every time you put the jug down.  Well, it might not sound like much but when you have such an amazing product that, although it might still look a bit old fashioned, REALLY does the job like no other. There is, for me, just nothing to beat the experience of making, and the pleasure of drinking a completely wholefood (meaning, fruits with seeds, and skins, adding nuts and seeds and loads of greens) creamy smoothie made with a Vita-Mix. I’m a Vitamix fan!

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